


Blood of My Blood

by SmashingTeacups



Category: Outlander & Related Fandoms, Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Da!Jamie, Domestic Fluff, Ducks, F/M, Family Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:20:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27377863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SmashingTeacups/pseuds/SmashingTeacups
Summary: Brianna is causing a ruckus at daycare. Jamie takes his wee lass out on a Saturday morning to feed some ducks and get to the bottom of the issue.Pure, unadulterated fluff. Modern day AU, standalone.
Relationships: Claire Beauchamp & Brianna Randall Fraser MacKenzie, Claire Beauchamp/Jamie Fraser, Jamie Fraser & Brianna Randall Fraser MacKenzie
Comments: 44
Kudos: 288





	Blood of My Blood

**Author's Note:**

> Figured we all needed a bit of fluff to get us through Election Day. Wrote this today in between caring for a wee newborn, and it's unbeta-ed, any errors are my own. :) Just meant to be a tiny escape and a bit of happiness in this stressful time. Enjoy!

“She’s a terrorist.”

Jamie took a measured sip of whisky, and successfully quashed the urge to roll his eyes. “She’s two, Sassenach.”

His wife wheeled on him, pointing her rapidly-emptying wine glass at him in accusation. “She chucked a toy at a toddler’s _head,_ Jamie. We are raising a bloody _sociopath,_ and...” She paused to down the rest of her chardonnay in two thick gulps, and Jamie was already grabbing the neck of the wine bottle to give her a refill before her lips had even left the rim of the glass. “The daycare is expecting us to do something about it, and I don’t have the faintest fucking idea what we’re supposed to—”

“I’ll take care of it,” he heard himself say. It was meant to pacify his wife in the moment, but in truth, he had no better idea how to deal with the situation than she did. 

Claire’s whisky eyes snapped up to his, a brow arched in blatant skepticism. “You will?”

He moved his head in a gesture somewhere between a nod and a shrug. “Aye. I’ll figure it out.” When his wife’s expression didn’t change, he fixed her with his most disarming smile. “What? Ye dinna trust me to negotiate wi’ our wee terrorist?”

It worked; the stress lines around her eyes softened just slightly, and she gave a small, apologetic smile. “No, I do,” she conceded, and set her glass down on the countertop with a dull clink before stepping into his arms. She breathed in deeply through her nose, inhaling the scent of him, and slumped limply against him as she exhaled on a sigh. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to keep snapping at you like this.”

“Ye’re fine,” he said softly, turning his lips into her hair. He knew damn well the stress his wife was under at the moment. In two days’ time, she would be the chief pediatric cardiologist scrubbing in with a dozen other surgeons on an intricate and dangerous separation of conjoined twins.

The bairns she would be operating on were the same age as their own wee daughter. 

He’d never seen Claire so nervous about a procedure before. She was at the top of her game, a brilliant surgeon with one of the best success rates in her field. But something about the group dynamic of this particular surgery seemed to be getting to her; she didn’t want to be the one to make a critical error, to be the one doctor on the team who caused the surgery to fail. She’d been staying up all hours of the night practicing her technique on a virtual simulator, on various pieces of produce, on cuts of meat. Her nerves were frayed; the last thing she needed to be worrying about at the moment was a wee ruckus at daycare. 

“Let’s go to bed,” he murmured, moving his lips to the pulse point just beneath her ear. “I want ye to get some good rest tonight. No alarms in the morning, hm? Sleep as long as ye like. I’ll get up wi’ Bree.”

Claire shook her head with another heavy sigh. “I don’t know if I _can_ sleep, honestly.”

“Ye will after I’m done wi’ ye,” he promised, and felt her smile as he lifted her off her feet. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


Brianna still had a purple berry stain smeared across her cheek as she skipped to the edge of the duck pond. Breakfast had been an elaborate affair, complete with eggs, parritch, yoghurt, and blueberry muffins (from a box mix, admittedly; Jamie was sure his mam was rolling in her grave, but he figured it was easier to implore his mother’s forgiveness than to invoke the hanger of a two year old). Of course, his wee progeny had been only too happy to “help” with food prep — she loved to dump ingredients in a bowl, and stir _enthusiastically,_ if not _productively_ — but she showed exactly zero interest in helping him tidy up their mess afterwards, despite his boisterous chorusing of the Clean Up Song. In the end, he’d quickly wiped a damp sponge over the countertops, thrown the dishes in the sink, and left a post-it note on the coffee maker for Claire that said _“Dinna fash about the mess, I’ll get it when the wee terrorist goes down for a nap.”_

He knew fine well he’d come back to a spotless kitchen anyway, but at least his Sassenach would have a fine breakfast and a toddler-free morning for her trouble.

“You still have a wee bit of blueberry on yer face, _a leannan,”_ he told his daughter, fishing a wipe out of her nappy bag. “Can Da wipe it for ye?” 

“No,” she sing-songed predictably, hopping from one foot to the other with her wee tongue poking out from her mouth in concentration.

With a long-suffering sigh, Jamie put the wipes back away. Toddler Parenting 101 seemed to consist of learning to pick his battles, and this simply wasn’t a hill he was willing to die on. Claire would have scowled at him, muttered about being a softie, but in the grand scheme of things a wee blueberry stain just wasn’t worth ruining the moment. The sun was bright and glittering on the water, the morning air was cool in his lungs, and his daughter had begun to chat amiably with the ducks as she hopped along the cobblestones.

“Cack cack cack, duckies,” she cooed. 

Jamie put a hand to his mouth to cover a grin. _“Qu_ ack _qu_ ack _qu_ ack,” he enunciated clearly. Brianna beamed up at him, oblivious to the difference. His chest filled with radiant warmth at the sight of her bonny smile _(Christ, so much like her mother’s)_ _,_ and he went to one knee beside her, gently stroking his fingers through her hair. “What is it they’re saying, _mo chridhe?_ Hm? Are the duckies sayin’ hello to ye? Are they saying ‘Good morning, Brianna’?”

“Yeah,” she agreed, turning sparkling blue eyes to the nearest duck.

“Can you say hello to the duckies?”

“Hi duckies,” she blurted, then turned her face shyly into his chest, the way she always did when she was prompted to greet a stranger.

“Oh, that’s verra nice,” Jamie soothed, cupping the back of her head in his palm. “Do ye think mebbe yer new friends are hungry? Should we share some bread with them?” 

Bree made a Scottish noise of agreement that he knew was a direct echo of his own, and he pressed smiling lips to her head. She hung back shyly in the curve of his body as he retrieved a ziplock of half-stale bannocks from the nappy bag, but willingly reached a soft, pudgy hand in to grab one when he opened it for her. He could already anticipate her intention to chuck the entire thing into the water, and quickly reached down to help her. 

“Hold on, Bree. The duckies only have wee mouths — wee beaks. We canna give them too big of a piece or they’ll no’ be able to eat it. We have to break it up for them, aye? Bitty wee pieces. That’s it.”

The shriek of laughter that his daughter emitted as he tossed the first handful of bannock to the ducks was perhaps the most joyful sound Jamie had ever heard in his life. Bree bounced a few hops away from him excitedly before scampering back into the protective circle of his arms. 

“Look, Da!” she squealed. 

“Yeah, are they eating the bannocks?” 

She nodded, giggling, and reached for her own handful to throw. “Again!” 

The pure, unadulterated bliss of feeding ducks only seemed to brighten with each handful of crumbs, until at last Bree found her courage, and was walking straight up to the edge of the water with each toss. She was particularly thrilled when a duck would capsize, diving to reach a bit of bannock with its tail sticking out of the water.

“That one is so silly, Da,” she informed him gleefully, pointing to a particularly noisy, greedy wee thing. 

“Aye, he is. Verra silly.”

She reached into the bag, crumb-coated fingers grasping for the last of the bannock. “Again!” she trilled for the umpteenth time.

“I think this will be the last one, Brianna,” he warned, trying to stave off a tantrum. “That’s all the bread we brought to share wi’ our wee friends this time.” He saw the glazed, pensive look fall over her eyes as she tried to decide what to do with that information, and lay a gentle hand on her back. “Was this so fun, _a leannan?_ Do ye think we should come back another time and bring Mummy to feed the ducks?”

She looked out at the pond for a long moment, considering, then nodded. “Yeah. Mummy loves duckies.”

“Aye, I’m sure she would love this. Let’s give the duckies their last wee snack, and go back home and tell her all about our adventure, aye?”

He heaved a sigh of relief when Bree proceeded to toss her last handful cheerfully, waved goodbye to her duck friends, then came to him with her hands outstretched, insisting, “Guck, Da. Wipe, please.”

Once her hands were cleaned to her satisfaction, Brianna willingly took his own outstretched palm, wrapping her tiny fingers around his thumb as they strolled back in the direction of home.

It was now or never, Jamie decided as his wee one skipped along beside him. He’d been purposeful in his word choice throughout the morning, and now was the prime opportunity to tie in his parenting moment. 

“I’m verra proud of how you treated yer new friends this morning, Brianna,” he began gently, stroking the back of her hand as they walked. “That was great sharing. It’s nice when friends are kind and share, isn’t it?”

“Mhm,” Bree agreed, half-distracted by a pigeon pecking at a discarded bag of crisps near a park bench. 

“What other things do nice friends do, do ye reckon?”

His daughter was pensive for a moment, then offered, “Give hugs?”

“Aye, that’s a verra nice thing.”

“And kisses.”

He hesitated, but nodded. “If ye’re verra close friends, then aye.”

“Give your friends turns with toys,” Bree continued, obviously prattling off well-learned lessons. 

“Mmphm. Ye sound like a braw friend, Brianna.”

“Yep,” she agreed easily, lifting her wee chin. 

Jamie paused, wet his lips, and slowly dropped down to his knees in front of his daughter, putting his hands on her shoulders. “Ye’re a verra good girl, _a leannan._ I know it. Yer Mam knows it. And it’s alright that ye make mistakes from time to time, everyone does. But I heard that ye threw a toy at one of yer wee friends at daycare yesterday, and ye canna be doing things like—”

Brianna’s eyes flashed, and she had never in her life looked more like her mother. “Archie’s _not_ my friend,” she growled. 

Jamie raised a palm in concession. “Alright. Weel, ye canna be throwing things at anyone, whether they’re yer friend or no’.”

Bright tears sprang to her eyes then, and her tiny bottom lip trembled indignantly. “He said Mummy’s a poopy face.”

He blinked at his daughter - once, twice - his mouth opening and closing. “Pardon?” 

She repeated herself, but the surprise didn’t lessen the second time. 

Jamie wanted to laugh, but kept the impulse in check. Barely.

Oh God, he couldn’t wait to tell Claire. Their daughter wasn’t a wee terrorist, she was executing vigilante justice. Protecting her mother’s good name.

He’d never been so proud.

Still, he knew his wife would have his hide if he didn’t say the proper, parental thing in that moment, so he admonished as gently as he could, “It would probably be best if next time ye let the adults around ye know when someone says somethin’ ugly to ye, _mo chridhe._ Ye’ll be in trouble when ye try to act on yer own. Ye ken that, aye?”

She nodded, dropping her long auburn lashes. Jamie reached out to brush the pad of his thumb over her soft, round cheek, and after considering her sweet face for a moment, leaned in conspiratorially to speak in a hushed tone by his daughter’s ear, “Did ye manage to hit the lad wi’ the toy?”

Bree whispered “yeah,” and Jamie nodded solemnly. 

“Good lass. If ye’re going to be in trouble, ye’d best be sure ye hit yer mark.” He attempted a wink, unable to keep from cracking a smile. “Dinna tell yer Mam I said that.”

“‘Kay,” she whispered back, a tiny smile touching her own lips. After a pause, she reached up both hands for him, placing them on his shoulders. “Uppy, Da? Carry me?”

The tiny thing was asleep, boneless and breathing softly against his neck by the time he stepped through the front door. Claire was waiting for them on the sofa, wrapped in a blanket and cradling a cup of tea in her hands. Her eyes softened when they landed on the two of them. Jamie conversed with her silently, asking if she wanted him to go lay the bairn down in her own room for a nap, and Claire shook her head, setting her mug down and reaching for her baby. 

The handoff was a seamless one, practiced and comfortable. As soon as Bree had settled against her mother with a snuffling breath, Jamie climbed over the back of the couch and wedged himself in behind them so he could cradle them both. 

“How did it go?” Claire whispered once he was settled, tipping her face up for a kiss.

“All sorted,” he promised, touching his lips to hers. 

She gave a single nod and relaxed back against him. “Did you find out what prompted it?” she asked, stroking a fingertip over the soft pink shell of their daughter’s ear. 

“Mmphm.”

When he didn’t immediately say more, Claire cocked her head back to look at him, quirking an eyebrow. He smiled into a second kiss, and murmured against her mouth, “She’s a Fraser.”

Claire hummed in amusement, then shook her head, transferring the kiss to their daughter’s head. “God help us.” 

“Aye,” he sighed, letting his eyes slip shut as he cuddled them closer. “We’re going to need it.”


End file.
